A cold rain fell in sheets at Yankee Stadium through most of the game, and while the conditions could have made for a slippery outcome for the Yankees, they were, after all, playing the Twins.
When these teams meet, whether in chilly rain, blistering sunshine or snow, the Yankees usually find a way to win, and Friday's game was no exception as they beat Minnesota, 2-0.
The game was halted for 1 hour 13 minutes in the bottom of the fourth inning, but starter Hiroki Kuroda outlasted the delay. Implacable as ever, he came back out in the fifth to earn the victory with five shutout innings and improved to 8-6 with a 2.65 earned run average.
Mariano Rivera earned his 30th save with a 1-2-3 ninth inning.
It was the Yankees' fifth win in five games against Minnesota this season. The Twins have lost 32 of their last 39 games against the Yankees, and since 2002, they are 7-31 at the Stadium.
The Yankees were batting with one out in the fourth when the umpires called for the tarp and the game was stopped. After a delay of that length, pitchers usually do not return because they could stiffen and sustain an injury.
Sometimes, if the delay is expected to last less than an hour, a pitcher might throw in the batting cage to stay loose.
Scott Diamond, the Twins' starter, was also working on a shutout, but he did not come back after the delay. He was pulled from the game in favor of Ryan Pressley, a right-handed reliever, who got the final two outs of the fourth. Then, with more rain starting to fall, Kuroda emerged from the dugout.
He got two quick outs, surrendered a double to Joe Mauer and a walk to Justin Morneau, but then got Ryan Doumit to ground out. That gave him 5 innings and 90 pitches, enough to qualify for the win if the Yankees could score a run in the bottom of the fifth, which they did.
They had only one hit off Diamond before the rain and did not get their second until 10:12 p.m. But it resulted in a run. Luis Cruz, the third baseman, pulled a ground ball through the hole on the left side of the infield off Pressley and advanced on a sacrifice.
Brett Gardner followed with a hit through the same hole, and Cruz came around with the game's first run. Gardner went to second on the throw home from left fielder Oswaldo Arcia, and then to third on a groundout by Ichiro Suzuki.
The Twins left-handed reliever Brian Duensing became the latest pitcher to make the mistake of pitching to Robinson Cano at a key point in a game. Cano lashed a single to center, scoring Gardner for an extra run.
Kuroda was replaced in the sixth by Preston Claiborne, who set down the Twins in order. But in the seventh he had more difficulty and needed Boone Logan to rescue him.
Pedro Florimon and Brian Dozier had back-to-back hits off Claiborne. But Logan came in and struck out the side. He got Chris Parmelee swinging and Mauer looking. The runners moved to second and third on a wild pitch, but Logan induced a checked swing from Morneau.
Morneau, already frustrated at the plate umpire Lance Barksdale's strike zone, was enraged when the third-base umpire Kerwin Danley ruled that he had swung. Morneau flipped his bat on the plate and then threw his helmet in disgust. A base hit would have evened the score. But this was the Twins and the Yankees, so that was not very likely to happen.
INSIDE PITCH
On the day he met with Major League Baseball investigators regarding his suspected link to an anti-aging clinic in Miami, Alex Rodriguez was supposed to play seven innings at third base for Class A Tampa Friday night, but the game was rained out. A doubleheader was scheduled for Saturday.
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